There is a need to preserve certain types of game play data from gaming machines. Such data is necessary to address disputes that players may have with a casino or other gaming establishment over whether or not a winning combination occurred, the amount of pay out due, etc. Further, casino operators sometimes need the same or related information for other reasons such as re-creating events that led to a malfunction, collecting statistical information before a power failure, logging the types of games played over the life of a particular machine, etc.
Among the types of commonly preserved data is so-called “critical data” or “critical game information,” which must be maintained by casinos or other gaming machine establishments. Such data may be stored as simple text and/or graphics. In some cases, entire frames of video data may be captured for this purpose. See for example U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/758,828 filed Jan. 15, 2004, previously incorporated by reference.
Typically gaming machines are provided with finite resources for storing the various types of game play data. Such resources often take the form of non-volatile RAM (NV-RAM), magnetic disk mass storage, etc.
Gaming regulators, such as the Nevada gaming commission, require that gaming machines save critical data for a certain length of time (e.g., a set number of games) before allowing older critical data to be purged from a gaming machine. To this end, gaming machine manufacturers sometimes store such data in battery-backed non-volatile RAM. This allows critical data to be stored without power for long periods of time. See the discussion in U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,763, previously incorporated by reference.
An ancillary issue arises with regard to preserving game data when a game is being removed from a gaming machine. Traditionally, a given gaming machine was born with and died with a single game, e.g., a video poker game. Modern technology allows games to be removed for various reasons such as because a license for the game has expired or because replacement with a different game is expected to increase revenue. A technology enabling such situations is downloadable code for individual games that can be executed on a given gaming machine or other terminal. In some terminals, only a single game is available for play at any given time. In other terminals, multiple games are available for user selection at particular instants in time.
Electronic downloading of the necessary software into the gaming machine allows a gaming machine to access scalable server farms and databases to select a set of games it needs from the game library. A desire of casino operators after games are safely downloaded is the ability to electronically move the games around on the casino floor. Casino managers routinely move slot machines (entire slot machine) around the floor in search of the optimum layout. A popular new game might be located near the door, but an older game might be better suited in the back. A Harley-Davidson game might be moved to the front during a Biker's convention, etc.
Currently, when a game is removed from a gaming machine, that “entire game,” including the game image and all statistical, counter, and historical information is deleted together, at one time. The “game image” refers to executable code for playing a given game on a master gaming controller. There are various difficulties with this approach. First, because the history of a game must be preserved, some special effort is required to capture that history before the game is wiped clean from the terminal. In some cases, this is done manually by an attendant, who may review meters and other records as necessary at the time the game is removed. In addition or alternatively, casino personnel may instruct a server to capture recent accounting and/or game history information as necessary. Obviously, the operator intervention required for these efforts represents some burden for the casino or other gaming establishment.
On top of the efforts required to capture critical data and other relevant game play data, an operator may be required to reset all manner of ancillary conditions associated with the game before a new game can be installed on the terminal. For example, the operator may be required to re-seed a random number generator, reset various meters, set background colors associated with games, etc.
In view of the above, it would certainly be desirable to have an improved methodology for capturing relevant information at the time of game removal.